Last weekend we watched what was left of the last (fifth) season of the HBO show Six Feet Under. It was something like six episodes in a row.

It left me moved – in fact, I’m still actively thinking about it, three days later. Sure, the last episodes were very emotional and there was a lot of crying and saying goodbye to dear characters, but I think it had that effect on me because of how it related to my (and everyone else’s) life. When we were watching the various characters’ funerals, I was actually thinking about the funerals I had attended to and would probably still have to attend to.

You might think that a show about dealing with death would get old, but it doesn’t really. It takes time until you know the characters well enough to see things from their point of view, but when death starts calling on the ones you do care about, it just doesn’t cease to bewilder you. What do you do now? How are you supposed to feel? How do you go on? Was anything accomplished? Was it a good life? Was it a good death? How does everyone else feel?

I don’t think that avoiding to think about death is intentional with most people, but surely it would be healthy, psychologically, to realize – and accept – at least on an intellectual level, that yes, you and everyone you care about is going to die. And most likely, some of them sooner rather than later.

I think that should make one think. For many people, it must be much easier to entirely avoid thinking about death, but wouldn’t you lead (and leave) a better life if you didn’t have to avoid the reality of it? For me, I’ve thought about death over the past few years, and yes, this thinking has had an effect on some facets of my life. While hard, that is absolutely a good thing.

TV sure has come a damn long way since the days of He-Man. Even if Six Feet Under’s fourth season was largely stale.

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| Copyright 2007 by Joonas Laakso | you can stand all night / at a red light anywhere in town / hailing marys left and right / but none of them slow down / i've seen the best of them go past / i don't wanna be the last / give me something fast